Most of the Washington Post’s tech reporters were laid off today, including me. I have loved my time at the paper, which is where I wanted to work from age 15. I take some consolation in not being among the survivors who will have to work harder with less for fewer readers. On to better things.

My story on Elon Musk cutting safeguards at xAI is on the front page of today's @washingtonpost.com. I’m also among 100’s of reporters laid off. I absolutely loved my job my brilliant coworkers & the thrill of reporting @ the center of forces upending the world: AI & Silicon Valley’s political power

My time with @equitablegrowth.bsky.social as a Dissertation Scholar was among the most pivotal moments in my PhD career– so grateful this is continuing with the support of @russellsagefdn.bsky.social! $15k in funding for dissertation candidates available: www.russellsage.org/apply/grants...

Excellent new paper from @js-tan.bsky.social and Kathleen Thelen, on the political economy of the cloud company business model and how it feeds the AI race and techno-nationalism journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Great opportunity for someone in the AI and labor space at @partnershipai.bsky.social! ats.rippling.com/pai-job-boar...

Very cool to see the paper @js-tan.bsky.social, @emilymazo.bsky.social & I wrote in @nytimes.com by @noamscheiber.bsky.social. TLDR; worker voice matters. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/26/b... Thx @ilrreview.bsky.social, @equitablegrowth.bsky.social, @techactions.bsky.social for making this possible!

📢 Policy colleagues — the Responsible AI Initiative at UC Berkeley, is conducting a study to understand genAI transparency needs among policymakers, experts, and advisors. If that’s you, consider filling out our (20 min) survey. Compensation $6.25 gift card: berkeley.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

From 2014 to 2022, tech workers’ social activism over #MeToo and Trump spurred the rise of bread-and-butter labor fights. Our article of the week examines the sources of class consciousness and labor activism in tech. By @js-tan.bsky.social et al. in @ilrreview.bsky.social buff.ly/DOl6IBm

@cellllla.bsky.social and I spoke with Eva Thiebaud for Options Magazine (France) about how the tech industry has changed politically since the Trump presidency and why techno-solutionism no longer holds any weight www.media-options.fr/2025/10/10/e...

📢 New article alert 📢 "Unlikely Organizers: The Rise of Tech Worker Labor Activism" is out with @ilrreview.bsky.social @js-tan.bsky.social, @emilymazo.bsky.social, and I find tech cos with political and social activism in the workplace saw 1.3x more labor activism in the next 6-12 months (1/2)

So excited to share our new article on tech worker activism, co-authored with @nataliyan.bsky.social and @emilymazo.bsky.social, just published in the @ilrreview.bsky.social!

Fantastic opp to be a defining voice on tech policy!

📝 🎓 ✨ New year. New semester. New syllabus for my undergraduate seminar (AI & Society) at @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social 📝 🎓 ✨ Link here: drive.google.com/file/d/1xquO...

Two amazing resources on worker voice and AI that you should know about: (1) ILO’s Global Case study of AI and algorithmic management by @vdoellgast.bsky.social and team The single best compendium of international law and union cases I’ve seen on this topic www.ilo.org/sites/defaul... (1/2)

For those at ASA (American Sociological Association) this year, come check out my paper session on: ✨ Responsible Generative AI Use by Product Managers. Sunday, Aug 10th, 8-9:30am Paper link: arxiv.org/pdf/2501.16531 And comment with anything else I can’t miss! @asanews.bsky.social

If you’re at Academy of Management tomorrow, come hear Genevieve Smith present on our paper covering genAI use by product managers— journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5...

The 90+ organizations supporting a People's AI Action Plan all have concrete, actionable ideas for an AI agenda that furthers the interests of everyday people and challenges the tech billionaire agenda we’ll see from the White House. Learn more about them: peoplesaiaction.com

Proud of @techactions.bsky.social for being among the first signatories to the People’s AI Action Plan— we need a tech agenda that puts the interests of workers and ordinary people first

📣 Exceptional resource alert from @ucblaborcenter.bsky.social: a database of U.S. union bargaining provisions related to workplace tech. laborcenter.berkeley.edu/negotiating-... Workers need a voice in how tech is utilized in the workplace— and here are 175 blueprints for what that looks like

A key US Senate committee has indicated that it will reject the huge budget cuts that President Donald Trump proposed for some science agencies, including the US National Science Foundation and NASA. go.nature.com/40H0XST

Love seeing efforts like this to support academics impacted by NSF cuts 👏

I spoke with @amandahoover.bsky.social at @businessinsider.com about the cost pressures that AI competition is putting on other operations at Big Tech companies. (1/4) www.businessinsider.com/silicon-vall...

fellow nonfiction writers! if you're not currently saving EVERY SINGLE web page/web news story you cite to the Wayback Machine YOU SHOULD BE!! no more dead links in footnotes! no more dead links in bibliographies! never ever forget how fragile the internet is—save internet history!

Bay Area friends, Gig Workers Rising is organizing a protest against surveillance pricing for platform-based drivers on July 1st in San Francisco ✊ 🚗 Surveillance pricing gives drivers NO transparency into how their hard work is valued. It's time for this practice to stop!

Content moderators are the backbone of the Internet and AI. No such thing as ethics without the ethical treatment of those who make it all possible

I spent the week talking to UPS Teamsters from around the country about what it’s like to deliver hundreds of packages in a heatwave, in trucks that still aren’t air conditioned, in a country without federal workplace protections for heat newrepublic.com/article/1972...

Harriet Tubman #quilt by my Mom, Vera P. Hall, who makes quilts celebrating Black people who fought for their own freedom. This seems to be the crowd favorite of the “We Didn’t Wait for Freedom” series. Happy #Juneteenth #quilting

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

@techactions.bsky.social is back!!! We're posting again and updating our archive and doing a big overhaul of the website. Sign-up below and stay tuned for more 👇

Brilliant project mapping the network of contracting firms that make the hidden labor of AI possible— transparency is a critical first step

Today’s AI isn’t just being used by us, it’s being used on us. We need to reclaim public power over the future trajectory of AI. In our 2025 report we offer a policy roadmap for how to regulate AI in favor of the public interest. Read the report: ainowinstitute.org/2025-landscape

Efforts to prepare for AI’s effects on employment must be grounded in evidence, not speculative futures, @nataliyan.bsky.social‬ writes. “Absent specificity…we risk either inaction or misdirected action on some of the most important issues of our time.” www.techpolicy.press/weaponizing-...

📣 New op-ed for Tech Policy Press is out. Thanks to @benlennett.bsky.social, @megyoung0.bsky.social, @jakemetcalf.bsky.social, @datasociety.bsky.social for making it possible!

For @techpolicypress.bsky.social, Natalia Luka warns us about how speculative harms attached to technologies like AGI miss how AI is impacting workers in the present and can actually lead to misdirected action

For anyone who will be in Athens for #FAccT2025

“Shut up and code” is the new management mantra for many in Silicon Valley as they embrace AI, writes Luca Belli. Their “(un)spoken goal is to have as few workers as possible who are as obedient as possible.”

AI is reshaping power and democracy in harmful ways, writes Kevin De Liban. “It is clearing Trump’s path to authoritarian rule” through decisions “that deprive the public of the resources needed to participate meaningfully in democracy.”

New non-profit by @yoshuabengio.bsky.social outputs “safe-by-design” AI systems that provide probabilities with their answers. That’s how these systems actually think… probabilities not all-knowing certainties. Glad to see someone lifting the hood on AI systems for the broader public

This launched today!!! 👏 Check out pieces by @benzevgreen.bsky.social on AI and Gov reform and @alexhanna.bsky.social and @emilymbender.bsky.social on the Myth of AGI. Spearheaded by Jake Metcalf and Meg Young

Apple should make the opposite of a Stand ring for hyperactive adults. Closing that one is never a problem “Congratulations, you sat still for an hour”. Now that’s an accomplishment

This is the kind of data that makes the case. 📊 AIDS deaths were rising—then dropped fast after 2005. ⬇️ PEPFAR launched in 2003. That’s not a coincidence. That’s impact. 🌍 We use this data to show what works in global health. It’s why PEPFAR still matters. ❤️

Such an honor and a (bittersweet) joy to celebrate the retirement of Neil Fligstein this weekend. His critical work on shareholder capitalism convinced me to become an economic sociologist and impacted scholars across political science, economics, and IR sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/neil...

Everyone in the past was neurotypical, which is how we got things like this single-author, eight-volume encyclopedia of ferns

Petition to add a sixth love language: forwarding email events and relevant newsletters

Harvard is showing that the key to defeating authoritarianism is solidarity

*Chef’s kiss* for this guide to recognizing AI discrimination from @techtonicjustice.bsky.social. Read, rinse, repost

@asanews.bsky.social, @aft.org , and others won nationwide order blocking the Trump administration’s attempt to cut off federal funding for teaching students the history and sociology of race and racism democracyforward.org/updates/harm...

“No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.” - Dean Alan Garber Proud of @harvard.edu for standing up for academic freedom 👏

One of my students designed a survey to see whether folks can tell the difference between human and AI art TLDR; they can’t. It’s worse than chance She needs more responses from people over 30. If that’s you, fill out her 2 page, 8 question survey pleeease docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...